Never Again
by Brinne
Summary: Where I would like to see season four go, even though it prob won't...the whole gang on a fun little mission. Little romance, little action, little drama. SV, WN, JI! RR Please!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Too bad… All the characters are property of JJ, Bad Robot, etc.

Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, so please be nice! And please review!

Sydney Bristow walked through the pristine white offices of APO, thinking to herself that for the first time in way too long her life was somewhat normal. Well, as normal as life could be for a woman who worked in a secret division of the CIA that just so happened to be headed by the person that she hated most in the world. She had a boyfriend, the sister that she had always wanted, an actual life outside her job, and a relationship with her father that, while it was progressing slowly, was progressing nonetheless.

As she sat down at her desk, a hand gently touched her shoulder. "Hey" she said softly, looking up.

"Hey yourself." Vaughn said as he leaned down for a quick kiss. "Did you just get in?"

"Yeah, I went for a run this morning and got wrapped up in it, so I was a little late. I have to say…waking up this morning wasn't the easiest thing."

"Oh? And why was that?" Vaughn asked, a smile on his face, as he could anticipate her answer.

"Hmmm…maybe because I didn't have my unbelievably gorgeous boyfriend to wake up to."

"Oh come on! Are you still going to give me the guilt trip? I thought you were through with it after last night. I sleep one night at my own house…"

"No, no I guess I'm done with it. I just missed you." Sydney said, smiling up at him.

"Yeah. I missed you too. Are we still on for dinner tonight?"

"Of course! And listen, I was thinking, why don't we have dinner in? We've been going out so much and Nadia and Weiss are going to be over at his place tonight, so we would have my house all to ourselves."

"That sounds great. I'll be looking forward to some Bristow cooking." Vaughn said as he walked to his own desk.

The day passed rather uneventfully until late in the afternoon when Sydney received a message on her computer telling her that she had a meeting in the conference room in fifteen minutes. _"Oh no."_ She thought to herself. _"I hope we're not getting sent on another mission. I just want to have some down time for once!"_

Fifteen minutes later Sydney walked into the conference room. The meeting hadn't started yet, but most of the people called to it were there already. She smiled at the sight of Weiss trying to tickle Nadia, and smiled even more when she caught sight of her father staring at the pair, a definite look of disapproval on his face. Marshall, Dixon, and Vaughn were there as well, which meant that they were waiting only on Sloane. She walked around the conference table, nodding to her father in greeting, and took a seat next to Vaughn. Moments later, Sloane entered the room.

"Good afternoon everyone. We have a bit of a situation that needs to be acted upon immediately." He nodded to the screen at the end of the room that had a picture of a young woman, close to Sydney's age, on it. "Ashleigh Montgomery." Another picture appeared, this one of a man who appeared to be in his early thirties. "Chris Montgomery." Pictures continued to come up on the screen. "Reid Rhalves." "Bradley Rhalves." "Charlotte Crown." "And Kyle Crown."

Upon hearing the last name, Jack Bristow drew a sharp breath. "Arvin, that's not…"

"Yes it is Jack." Sloane said, a faint smile on his face. He turned to address the whole group. "Kyle Crown is an old acquaintance of both mine and Jack's from the days of SD-6."

"Oh this is just wonderful." Sydney muttered under her breath, slumping slightly in her chair.

Sloane continued as if he had not heard Sydney's comment. "Kyle was never involved directly with SD-6 but we consulted with him on occasion, as he is an expert in all things Rambaldi." Upon uttering that name, which had not been heard in quite some time, every single person in the room sat up a little straighter and looked around. Marshall, shuddering, had the most visible reaction. Sloane continued, "Seeing as though I have not heard from him in quite some time, it was a bit of a surprise to me when I received a phone call from him two hours ago. Someone attempted to kidnap him last night. He believes, and I concur with him, that the attempt was made because of something he has recently discovered about Rambaldi's endgame. I also agree with his assumption that the Covenant is behind the attempt."

"What!" Vaughn said sharply. "The Covenant? I though that with Lauren dead and Sark in custody, we didn't have to worry about the Covenant anymore."

"Well you thought wrong Mr. Vaughn. First of all, though Ms. Reed and Mr. Sark were quite high up in Covenant leadership, they did not control the organization. Secondly, though Ms. Reed is indeed dead…Mr. Sark is no longer in United States custody. And hasn't been for three months"


	2. Never Again, Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Too bad… All the characters are property of JJ, Bad Robot, etc.

Author's Note: Thanks for the people who reviewed, but if more people don't, I'm not sure if I will keep posting, so please let me know if I should continue!

**Chapter 2**

There was a stunned silence in the conference room for a moment and then everyone began talking at once.

"What the –"

"How on Earth?"

"That bastard!"

Sloane held up a hand, waiting for everyone to calm down. "Please people, please, I would like to get on with this briefing."

"NO. Sydney said, half standing up and placing both her hands on the table. "I think that given the history that everyone in this room has with Sark, we deserve some explanation of WHY THE HELL HE IS NOT IN CUSTODY."

Sloane, recognizing the determined look on Sydney's face, realized that in the end the briefing would go more quickly if he explained and did not have to deal with Sydney's interruptions that were sure to come if he did not explain the fate of Sark. "OK, I will give you a short explanation. Mr. Sark, as you all know, was apprehended a few months ago and put in CIA custody. He was a rather cooperative prisoner and provided us with much useful intelligence. After it was determined that Mr. Sark could provide the United States with no more useful information, the decision was made to release him. With Ms. Reed and Ms. Derevko dead and the Alliance no longer functioning, all direct connections Mr. Sark had to the terrorist world were of no use to him. Against my wishes, the CIA decided to release Mr. Sark, believing that he would be of no immediate threat, and hoping that if they could successfully keep tabs on him, we might eventually be able to take in some of his terrorist associates."

"This is absolutely unbelievable!" Vaughn seethed. The CIA made the same mistake with Sark in the past – I can't believe that they let him out of their hands again."

"If you knew all of this – if you were consulted on this – why didn't you tell any of us?" Sydney questioned Sloane, anger evident in her voice. "Dad, did you know about this?"

Jack looked as shocked as all the others in the room and could do nothing but shake his head no. Sydney breathed out, relieved that this wasn't yet another secret that her father had been hiding from her. Sloane, she expected this from. Her father, on the other hand…they were making such progress, and she didn't want a reason to be disappointed by him yet again.

"Well now that I've explained Mr. Sark's release, I would like to continue with the mission briefing. As I explained before, Mr. Crown is an expert on Milo Rambaldi and believes that he has discovered something regarding his endgame. The Covenant wants that information and has made the retrieval of it their number one priority. They are leaving nothing to chance and are pursuing not only Mr. Crown, but also his wife, Charlotte, his two daughters, Ashleigh and Reid, and the girl's husbands, Christopher and Bradley. The one thing we have working in our favor is the fact that as far as we know, the Covenant does not know what any of these individuals look like. We are going to take advantage of this fact and use it to not only help protect the Crown family, but also to gather more information on the Covenant and their current activities. Sydney, Michael, Eric, Nadia, and Jack, you will be going undercover and posing as Ashleigh, Chris, Bradley, Reid, and Kyle respectively. Dixon, you will be going along with them as backup."

"Where are we going?" Nadia asked.

"This evening you will fly to New York City. The three families all live in different locations, but we want to keep all of you together for security reasons. The Crowns own a penthouse in the city and that is where you will be staying. I want you to be conspicuous, but not overly so – the Covenant has to know that you are in the city. The purpose for your visit is simply that you are on a family vacation. We will provide you with all the necessary tools. Marshall?"

"Well first of all I just – Wow. Sark's back. Unbelievable. Actually, it's a little scary. I'm sort of creeped out now. I mean Sark, free? At least – "

"Marshall." Sloane said softly.

"Yeah, ok, back to the mission. We're going to give you all the basics obviously, but since all of you are targets, you need to know where each other are at all times, right? Sooooo, I've inserted microphones into these normal, you know everyday things, so you can be in contact with each other all the time. And the best thing about them – this is really cool, rather genius, if I may say so – is that they are completely undetectable. Totally. No one will ever know that you have them on." With that, he sat down, looking pleased with himself.

Sloane stood up once again. "We will be providing you with the proper identification papers. Since the Covenant has no idea what any members of the family look like, you will not have to alter your appearances. There is no need to pack too much, as there are full wardrobes for all of you waiting at the penthouse in the city. Michael and Sydney, you will be flying out of LAX this evening. Weiss and Nadia, you will fly to Washington DC, and then take another flight to New York. Jack, you will go to San Francisco and take a flight to New York from there. Once you get to the city, there will be cars waiting for all of you to take you to the apartment, cars that you will have full use of while you are on this mission. Dixon will be posing as the doorman to your building should you need backup. You will be checking in with this office daily, more often if anything eventful happens. Here are your tickets. I wish you luck."

Weiss spoke up. "Mr. Sloane? I'm not sure if you noticed this but…who is posing as Jack's wife? I'm sure that it was difficult to get someone to volunteer for that particular job but…"

"Yes. Charlotte Crown. Ah, I think she has just appeared." Sloane said as a shadow darkened the door of the conference room. All heads turned in that direction simultaneously and for the second time that day, the room was filled with a shocked silence.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Sydney choked out a single word, her voice cracking, her tone questioning. "M-Mom?"


	3. Never Again, Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Too bad… All the characters are property of JJ, Bad Robot, etc.

Author's Note: Thanks for the people who reviewed, but if more people don't, I'm not sure if I will keep posting, so please let me know if I should continue!

**Chapter 3**

"Mom?" Sydney repeated, not able to believe that her mother – who her father had supposedly KILLED – was standing in the same room as her, no more than 15 feet away.

"Hello Sydney." Though Irina's voice was measured and controlled as always, if anyone at the conference table were close enough to her they would have been able to see a faint glistening in Irina's eye.

"Wh-What are you doing here? I mean, Dad told me that he killed you but…" Sydney trailed off, quite confused at the situation in front of her.

"Yes. Sydney, I really do regret the fact that I had to tell you that, but I can assure you, it was absolutely necessary to protect your mother." Jack said, anxiously glancing at his daughter, hoping that she wouldn't explode.

At these words Sydney leaned into her chair, her face pale and her body limp, not fully believing the scene that was playing out in front of her. Vaughn briefly touched her hand and she glanced over at him quickly. She seemed to gain some strength from seeing the secure presence of her boyfriend and sat up a bit straighter.

Nadia then spoke up for the first time, her face streaked with tear marks. "I think that what I and every person in this room would like right now is an explanation. Mom…Mom" she said again, the second time repeating the word softly to herself. "How – What happened? How did you come to be here?"

"Yes Nadia, you're right. I do owe all of you an explanation. I would have to say that this all started…maybe a year ago. It was around that time that I realized my life was at risk. Though there have been assassination attempts made on my life in the past, the attempts were growing in both number and frequency. In February of the last year, I finally recognized one of the people sent to kill me. It was someone who I knew well actually, someone who I had worked with before. I'd worked with him while I was working with Julian Sark. Once I realized this, it soon became clear that Mr. Sark – and likely Ms. Reed as well – were behind the attempts on my life. Sark had worked with me enough to know that I have extensive files and contacts that would be useful to anyone. He knew where they were but knew that as long as I was alive he would never have a chance to take them from me. However, if I were dead, it would make the retrieval of the documents infinitely easier. I knew that Sark would not give up so I decided that the only way I would ever be safe again would be if I were to fake my own death. I contacted Jack and asked him to help me. We both knew that it would be easiest to fake the death if he were involved in it." She said, flashing a brief, almost tentative smile at Jack.

"We also wanted to somehow have it be a government sanctioned assassination, as if that were so, there would be papers documenting the death, papers that Lauren and Sark would no doubt find. To advance our plan, I called an assassin who I had worked with in the past. I gave him orders to – to kill Sydney. I did it in such a way that Jack would be able to document the call and take it to the government, who sanctioned my assassination, believing that I was a threat to one of their most valuable agents." This time, she smiled openly at Sydney, who did nothing but stare at her mother with her mouth slightly open.

"Once I was dead, I was free to operate as I liked. However, it was around this time that Nadia reappeared. I decided that I wanted to do whatever I could to see my daughters again – both of them, together. I made the decision to contact Kendall. I told him that in return for my freedom, I would give the United States all the Rambaldi artifacts I own. It took awhile but he agreed, with the condition that I have agents around me at all times."

Irina finished and looked down at her hands; she had no idea what the reaction of the people in the room would be and wasn't sure if she wanted to find out.

"So…you're free? I mean you can live in the US and everything?" Nadia asked, sounding a little doubtful.

"Yes. Well, I'm as free as I can be with armed guards around me everywhere I go!' Irina said with a sad smile.

"And…you're coming with us on this trip." Sydney stated.

"Yes I am. Since it concerns Rambaldi, Arvin thought it would be a good idea to have one expert in the group. And also, since Sark is involved, I would like to foil his plans for obviously personal reasons. I will be Charlotte Crown."

"My wife." Jack said, a slight sneer on his face. It was obvious that while he had helped Irina keep her life he still was not entirely comfortable with her. It was also obvious that Sloane had not consulted with him before making the decision to include Irina in the mission.

"Yeah." Irina said softly, searching Jack's eyes for some sign that he was happy at the prospect of the mission. She found none.

"Well." Weiss said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Mike, it looks like it's you and me and family Bristow. I'm really looking forward to this mission. Marshall…got an extra bulletproof vest I can borrow?"


End file.
